Cooler Master V8 Review

Introduction:

Have you been looking for a new cooler for your processor? Are you big into overclocking and you want the most efficient way to cool your overclocked dual or quad core CPU? Maybe you are not ready to venture over into the side of extreme cooling, and want to stick with air cooling. If so, you are in luck, Cooler Master has just released their V8 CPU Cooler. This cooler is like nothing else that is currently out on the market. Its huge (No surprise there), can be used with multiple platforms (LGA775, AMD 754,939,940and AM2), and looks like it can cool anything you can throw at it with 180 watts worth of capacity. The Cooler Master V8 Cooler features four separate fin arrays with a center mounted fan to maximize it's cooling abilities. I am interested to see exactly how well this cooler works and how well it's going to cool an overclocked Intel quad-core CPU. Will it be the one to finally pull the TRUE off it's pedestal and become the new king of the hill, or will it be another pretender with high expectations?

Closer Look:

The packaging for the cooler is very simplistic in looks, as it is completley black in color with a very limited amount of words and pictures, letting the consumer know exactly what they want to know about the cooler. The front of the packaging is where you to find the main picture of the Cooler Master V8 CPU Cooler, along with the Cooler Master badge in the upper left hand corner of the package. At the bottom of the package the V8 logo appears, along with the slogan "Experience the power of V8," letting you know that the cooler is very powerful. Above the slogan, you are also going to see that the cooler is rated to cool 180W, more than enough for your overclocked CPU! When you take a look at the back of the cooler you'll find all of the specifications for the Cooler Master V8 CPU Cooler, along with the main features Cooler Master wants you to know about. The two sides of the V8's packaging are very simple--they show the V8 logo as well as a small picture of the cooler itself. Below the logo on the sides are the logos for the processors that it has been rated to cool. Well, enough talk about the packaging, let's open her up and see if she's a beauty like the box makes her out to be.

Now that we have seen the package for the Cooler Master V8, I am interested in seeing how the cooler was kept in place during the shipping process, and what she looks like. When you open the package up, the cooler is in a molded plastic package to keep it from moving around during the shipping process, as well as to help prevent any fins from being damaged. Included with the cooler are the warranty card, a user manual and an accessory box.

Inside of the white accessory box, you find everything that is needed for the installation of the Cooler Master V8 CPU Cooler. You may be wondering what comes in that package. Well, when you open it up, you are going to see that there is a back plate for the Intel Socket 775 CPU, one of the more common CPU sockets on the market right now, and there is a bag that contains everything else that you are going to need. Inside of this bag, you are going to find another smaller bag that contains all of the screws/bolts to mount the cooler with, a tube of thermal paste, two mounting brackets for the Socket 775, as well as the mounting bracket and back plate for the AMD side of things.

Now that we know exactly what the Cooler Master V8's package looks like and what comes packaged with it, we are ready to take one of the first looks at the Cooler Master V8 CPU Cooler.